WHERE TO LOOK

Ever since superstorm Sandy destroyed Dawn Harstsgrove’s trailer in Paradise Trailer Park in Highlands on Oct. 29, the 55-year-old widow has been staying with neighbors, sleeping on the floor in the living room of a unit without heat, water or electricity.

“We can’t take showers, we can’t cook, we can’t do anything, so we’re very desperate” to find somewhere else to live, Harstsgrove said.

Harstsgrove, who is disabled with a degenerative disc disease and lupus, said she has registered for assistance with the Federal Emergency Management Agency, so money isn’t the problem.

She said she has looked for apartments in Highlands, Atlantic Highlands and Middletown, but there are none to be found. She said she can’t even find a hotel room in the area.

“I have money to go, but I have nowhere to go,” Harstsgrove said.

Realtors say they have been hearing the same desperation over and over again in the voices of people who were displaced by Sandy. People have been flooding real-estate offices with phone calls ever since the storm carved a destructive path through New Jersey, leaving many homes unlivable.

“There are no hotels — they’re filled with evacuees, emergency workers and out-of-state utility workers,” said Linda Stefanik, president of the Ocean County Board of Realtors. She called the problem massive.

“We’re inundated with calls for temporary housing rentals,” said Jim Flanagan of Flanagan Realty, with offices in Toms River and Manchester.

The calls come from displaced people with elderly parents, people with pets, people with children, even chemotherapy patients, Flanagan said.

“It’s not just my office — every real-estate office up and down the Shore is inundated with calls,” he said. “The problem is, we don’t have enough supply of rentals for families that have been displaced.”

Large numbers

Officials so far have been unable to quantify how many housing units in the Shore area and throughout New Jersey were rendered unlivable or were destroyed as a result of Sandy. But statistics suggest the enormity of the problem:

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• As of Nov. 7, 167,272 families in New Jersey had registered for assistance with FEMA;

• Last week, almost 3,000 people displaced by the hurricane were staying in 82 shelters throughout New Jersey;

• Some 24,723 homeowners in Ocean County, almost 9 percent of the county’s households, have applied to the federal Small Business Administration for loans to help them rebuild. In Monmouth County, the number is 13,154, or about 5 percent of the county’s households. Statewide, 80,667 homeowners, about 2 percent of all households, have applied.

FEMA will provide housing assistance to those who qualify. At the moment, the agency is unable to say where those affected families will live while their homes are repaired or rebuilt.

Gov. Chris Christie announced Monday that the federal government will reopen Fort Monmouth for use as temporary housing for between 400 and 600 families that were displaced by Sandy. That might not be enough.

“We do our best to help find a rental house,” said FEMA spokeswoman Robin Smith. “Realistically, we ask people to help themselves. When you’re talking about one of the most populated states in the nation, it’s going to be a challenge.”

Rental shortage

In fact, rental housing was in short supply before Sandy struck, said Jack Waters, regional vice president for Weichert Realtors, who oversees the company’s 20 offices in Monmouth, Ocean and Middlesex counties.

“The buying public has been off-balance with the economy,” he said. “Folks who would typically purchase were renting. It wasn’t like we had a glut of apartments. It’s going to be a challenge for a lot of folks.”

Waters suggested it’s possible the newly increased demand for rental properties could drive up the cost of apartments, which may convince some homeowners who ordinarily wouldn’t rent their properties to do so. That could include owners of seasonal rentals who, for the first time, may now consider renting their properties for the winter, Waters said.

The Ocean County Board of Realtors, meanwhile, is reaching out to its 2,000 agents in some 200 member offices to connect with summer homeowners who might consider renting their houses to those displaced by Sandy, said Thomas Wissel, administrator of the board’s multiple listing service.

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Wissel said the board is trying to compile a database of emergency housing options that it can make available to the public on its website: jerseyshoremls.com. Because many real estate offices were closed last week, the database is taking shape slowly, he said.

Peter S. Reinhart, director of Monmouth University’s Kislak Real Estate Institute, suggested that properties that have been foreclosed on by banks could be added to the housing stock for displaced hurricane victims.

Weichert’s Waters was doubtful anyone would be successful in getting banks to make foreclosed properties available as emergency rentals, but Reinhart was more hopeful.

“A crisis causes people to reevaluate positions,” Reinhart said. “Maybe some leaders from the governor’s office could try and push that along. It just seems not right for there to be empty houses and people who need empty houses.”

Another source of housing could become available if age restrictions are temporarily removed from adult communities, Reinhart said.

Flanagan estimated that about 1,400 units in Ocean and Monmouth counties could become available as temporary housing for Sandy’s victims if the 55 and older age restrictions are lifted from the adult communities.

New guidelines

The Ocean County Board of Realtors’ Stefanik said the New Jersey Association of Realtors has been working with the federal Department of Housing and Urban Development to issue guidelines that would encourage adult communities to make unoccupied units available as temporary rentals to families displaced by Sandy. She said the statewide realtors association is trying to elicit the help of the adult communities in that regard, and it is also hoping to work with the New Jersey Apartment Association, which represents the operators of more than 170,000 rental units, to solve the crisis.

The apartment association issued a statement saying it stands ready to work with federal, state and local officials to identify needed housing for displaced persons.

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Stefanik said that while displaced families may desire to stay close to home because of their jobs and schools, they may have to be flexible.

“The Ocean County Board of Realtors reached out to the Burlington (county) board to get them hooked up to our multiple listing service,” she said. “That’s how far we had to go. People have to be realistic. There’s only so much property here.”

Meanwhile, Flanagan, who is working with the Ocean County board to help develop the database of potential emergency housing, wants the displaced public to be patient and to know the real estate community is trying to help them.

“We have not abandoned them,” Flanagan said.

“Local real estate agencies are working diligently on this.”

The story of one family may provide a ray of hope to others who think they are in a hopeless situation.

Terri Sadler and her partner, Diana San Filippo, thought they were never going to be able to find somewhere to house their family of four children and two grandsons after Sandy washed away half of their five-bedroom house on Prospect Avenue in Union Beach.

But after almost two weeks of staying in a friend’s two-bedroom home in Hazlet while hunting for a rental and learning that many other people were vying for the same properties, the family got lucky.

Sadler said she was in a real-estate office on Sunday when a landlord with an available, four-bedroom townhouse in Old Bridge arrived there. The landlord offered the family a one-year lease on the townhouse.

“It fell in our lap,” she said.

The family’s new home is close to her job, Sadler said. And her children will be able to continue to attend school in Keyport because the Keyport school district will provide them with transportation.

“We had a miracle happen Sunday,” Sadler said. “I was very blessed for this to happen, especially before the holidays.”